Charita Goshay: Pulpit politics detours church from its purpose

Sunday

Mar 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 30, 2008 at 12:50 PM

We know there’s a lot of tit-for-tat in politics, so it comes as no surprise that it’s now Sen. Barack Obama’s turn to explain his relationship with his outspoken, Afrocentric former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

Charita Goshay

We know there’s a lot of tit-for-tat in politics, so it comes as no surprise that it’s now Sen. Barack Obama’s turn to explain his relationship with his outspoken, Afrocentric former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

Actually, this should come as good news for those who have insisted on tagging Obama as a Muslim.

In a time where everything is preserved for posterity, even what someone else says, can -- and will -- be used against you. Obama has attempted to explain his long history with Wright, and his inexplicable complacency regarding some of Wright’s more outrageous statements.

But short of Obama pummeling Wright live on YouTube, or Wright’s arrest for sedition, no explanation will ever be enough for some people.

Blame merchants

We know there are “blame merchants,” people who peddle resentment and foster victimhood to serve their agendas. We also know it is irrational to try to judge 40 years of ministry, based on a few choice minutes from a series of 5-year-old video clips.

The controversy is good in that it has people talking about the one thing that no one wants to talk about. It also sheds light on the dual role of the black minister as that of preacher and provocateur.

Long before Martin Luther King Jr. was on a pedestal, he was in an FBI file, seen by the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations as a possible a threat to the national interest.

The call for social justice is meant to shake us out of our self-centered complacency. What it should not do, however, is add to the problem. Some of Wright’s statements were not only incendiary but also reckless and indefensible. He would do well to remember that a lot of innocent black Americans died on Sept. 11.

Yet, people who scoff at his seemingly wild contention that AIDS might be a government plot against blacks and gays should remember that the federal government has already shown itself capable of such behavior by way of the Tuskegee Experiment and smallpox-infected blankets given to Native Americans in the 1800s.

Pulpit power

The danger of any pulpit is its power, which can result in its occupant straying too deeply into the muck of politics. But does the fallout depend on who’s doing the ranting?

The Rev. Pat Robertson -- who never seems to have a good prophecy from the Lord -- has called for bombing Cuba and bumping off Hugo Chavez, yet no candidate seeking his support, including President George W. Bush, has been flogged for it.

Sen. John McCain’s “spiritual guides” include the Rev. Rod Parsley of Columbus, who calls Islam a “false religion,” supports recriminalizing adultery and urges Christians to “lock and load” for spiritual battle with nonbelievers, and the Rev. John Hagee, who infuriates Catholics by tagging their Church as apostate. Even so, Catholics who support McCain are unlikely to cast their votes elsewhere because of Hagee’s bombast.

Should not Wright and Obama be accorded the same measure? It all underscores the fundamental problem that occurs when religion and politics climb onto the same high horse.